tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29388847058167094692018-09-16T21:54:08.699-07:00DOTS911A campaign to save a hundred thousand lives annually by improving phone reception: http://igg.me/at/dots911JR Wilburnoreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938884705816709469.post-88254796049224270202014-06-09T19:28:00.000-07:002015-09-10T19:02:55.994-07:00Design Improvements and a Manufacturing Update<div style="text-align: justify;"><h2>Newest link to Assembly of Your Signal Enhancer</h2><div><a href="http://igg.me/at/dots911">Click Here for Info. and Videos at Successful Indiegogo Campaign</a><br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quVWgY80IM0">CLICK HERE TO SEE ASSEMBLY VIDEO</a></div><br />We want to give you an update on our Signal Enhancer manufacturing progress as we work toward shipping finished parts. &nbsp;We've made a bunch of improvements to the design we demonstrated in our Indiegogo videos and we wanted to get as many of them as possible into our first fabrication run. &nbsp;Many of our recent refinements appear in the bridge (the piece that connects the Signal Enhancer itself to the piece that holds your phone) and the stand. &nbsp;As you can see below, we're now making bridges with our final design in production quantities.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--OIJFRKTDPM/U5ZlKkXqteI/AAAAAAAAAIk/51Dy01fp8Mk/s1600/bridges.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--OIJFRKTDPM/U5ZlKkXqteI/AAAAAAAAAIk/51Dy01fp8Mk/s1600/bridges.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But wait, there's more! &nbsp;The stand, which initially wasn't as stable as we wanted and which was manufactured in China, is now <b>much, much more solid</b>, <b>made in the USA</b>, and it also <b>serves as a spare bridge</b> in case your first bridge suffers any sort of damage! &nbsp;The new bridge-stand pair, seen in the below photo, provides a much better platform for the Signal Enhancer and your phone, keeping the parts you care about properly aligned and protected.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_gcnh3ujfcM/U5ZlKm8-w4I/AAAAAAAAAIo/9hd7iLJsbXE/s1600/integrated+mount.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_gcnh3ujfcM/U5ZlKm8-w4I/AAAAAAAAAIo/9hd7iLJsbXE/s1600/integrated+mount.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We also improved the geometry of the Signal Enhancer itself, adjusting the alignment between the disc and the phone to make it easier to optimize signal gain. &nbsp;We're fabricating all of these pieces now and putting them together in the most convenient and secure packaging method we can devise as we prepare for shipment. &nbsp;We expect to send Signal Enhancers to our supporters by the end of the month. &nbsp;We can't wait!</div>JR Wilburhttps://plus.google.com/116220442865198769411noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938884705816709469.post-10628471958574902172014-05-18T10:30:00.001-07:002014-05-18T10:30:02.443-07:00Following up on Our Successful Indiegogo Campaign<div><b>Thanks to all who have supported our Indiegogo campaign!</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>We have received our funds from Indiegogo and have started the production of the signal enhancers for&nbsp;fulfillment&nbsp;of Perks. We will keep you informed as we start to ship out the first units.</b><br /><b><br /></b><b>For those of you who missed out on our campaign, please email us at info@dots911.com to receive notification of when and where our signal enhancers and apps will be available for you as well.</b></div>JR Wilburhttps://plus.google.com/116220442865198769411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938884705816709469.post-68295593668023099422014-04-07T08:00:00.001-07:002014-04-07T08:01:48.854-07:00We Hit Our Initial Funding Target on Indiegogo!<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">A lot has happened with our funding campaign in the last few weeks.&nbsp; First, we moved to Indiegogo, where we were able to guarantee shipment of Signal Enhancers regardless of whether we hit our funding target.&nbsp; But then we surpassed our target, making the point moot!&nbsp; Thanks to all our supporters for helping us reach our initial funding goal.<o:p></o:p><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VIVwcPpB7cY/U0K8scpKMeI/AAAAAAAAAH4/ZC-44PGTmK8/s1600/IMG_7208bJohn.large.circle.jpg" imageanchor="0"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VIVwcPpB7cY/U0K8scpKMeI/AAAAAAAAAH4/ZC-44PGTmK8/s1600/IMG_7208bJohn.large.circle.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /><a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><u>For those who haven’t read our product information:</u></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Everyone who contributed will receive at least one DOTS911 Signal Enhancer and a mobile signal finder app.&nbsp; Those signal enhancers will increase mobile phone signal strength by up to 15 dB, making it possible to place phone calls in areas that normally show no useable signal.&nbsp; This Signal Enhancing hardware requires no power source, has no wires, and functions with every commercially available mobile phone and every currently active mobile service provider.&nbsp; The same signal strength improvement has also been found to dramatically increase mobile phone data transfer rates.&nbsp; In home use, DOTS911 Signal Enhancers have enabled 40x increases in data transfer rates and have been demonstrated improving call clarity in areas with marginal signal, a problem faced by many homeowners with stucco walls or signal occlusion by nearby geographical features or buildings.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The DOTS911 mobile signal finder app leads users from an area with no mobile service to the nearest location where they can make a phone call.&nbsp; We’ve primarily described this feature in the context of emergency situations.&nbsp; The inspiration behind our suite of mobile signal locator and Signal Enhancer products was the story of James Kim, a cnet reporter who died in Oregon after getting stranded in the snow.&nbsp; Kim, whose family survived the ordeal, was unable to call for help with his mobile phone because he was unable to find a working signal.&nbsp; When we investigated the site of the Kim tragedy, we found that the family’s car was stuck only a quarter mile from a working mobile phone signal.&nbsp; The problem for James, and for thousands of others who die in the same situation each year, was that there’s nothing on the market that will tell you where to go to find a signal when you start in a dead zone.&nbsp; The DOTS911 signal finder app was designed to address this need, pointing lost or trapped hikers, cyclists, and drivers to the nearest working phone service in an emergency.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Again, thanks to our supporters.&nbsp; For those of you who haven’t bought our products, go ahead and do so at <a href="http://igg.me/at/dots911">http://igg.me/at/dots911</a>.&nbsp; While there, you can also learn a lot more about how our products work, what they do, and why you should seriously consider using them. &nbsp;You can also read the other posts on this blog for demonstrations.&nbsp; If you like yourself or anyone else, it’s a good idea to equip those people with Signal Enhancers and our app: it’s like an extra life you can carry around in your car.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"></div>JR Wilburhttps://plus.google.com/116220442865198769411noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938884705816709469.post-64351838763951825752014-02-16T06:39:00.000-08:002014-02-28T07:05:25.086-08:00Meet the DOTS911 Team<h4><span style="color: red;">Link to new DOTS911 campaign on Indiegogo:</span><span style="color: blue;">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dots911" style="color: blue;" target="_blank">http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dots911</a>.</h4><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: medium; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: center;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: center;">"Meet the Magician Who Can Fix Your Crappy No Bars Cell Signal."...see the new article about DOTS911 at</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: center;">&nbsp;<a href="http://www.fastcolabs.com/3026060/meet-the-magician-who-can-fix-your-crappy-no-bars-cell-signal" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">FastCoLabs by Jennifer Elias</span></b></a>.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-17OnG93_P8Q/UwDNUqSyzxI/AAAAAAAAAHM/liR0UK89U4E/s1600/IMG_7208bJohn.large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-17OnG93_P8Q/UwDNUqSyzxI/AAAAAAAAAHM/liR0UK89U4E/s1600/IMG_7208bJohn.large.jpg" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Founder/CEO: John Wilbur designed the first joystick for Pong-type games, first coin-operated billiards game, the first microprocessor-based coin operated game circuit boards, and invented the first 80-column card for Apple Computers, allowing the Apple II to be used as a business machine with a full-width display and critical in making the world’s first personal computer word processors and spreadsheets usable. He also designed and sold manufacturing rights to the first 128k RAM card for Apple Computer, i.e., the first SSD for an Apple PC, and designed the hardware and software for the first multiprocessor LORAN, the navigational system used in virtually every ship and many airplanes for the last several decades. He brings DOTS911 a track record of innovating in ways that change the world as well as experience running electronics businesses and interacting with hardware manufacturers to ensure quality, lower costs, and improve yields.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Founder: Jeffrey Wilbur has a B. S. from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley as well as six years of experience analyzing market data, developing new products, leading research teams, interacting with customers, and shaping research strategy at The Dow Chemical Company. He has a deep technical background and extensive experience with the materials science relevant to the hardware we have developed.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Board Member: George Crow was a key member of the original Apple Macintosh team and a cofounder of NeXT with Steve Jobs. He has extensive industry experience at Hewlett-Packard, Apple, NeXT, Supermac, and Truevision.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Developers: One developer with six years of experience at a major internet-focused Silicon Valley firm and one with nine years of experience at a major internet-focused Silicon Valley firm.</span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Below is the text from John Wilbur's exhibit at the Homebrew Computer Club reunion in November 2013, which is also described here:<span style="color: blue;"> <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57611874-235/homebrew-computer-club-reunion-lights-up-silicon-valley/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57611874-235/homebrew-computer-club-reunion-lights-up-silicon-valley/</span></a>.</span></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><h2>The Road to the First 80-Column Card and First SSD for the Apple Computer</h2><h3>Video Game Design</h3><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I had been designing and producing coin operated video games since the first big one, “Pong,” met with wild popularity. I invented and licensed the first joystick version of the tennis game to Meadows Games in 1974. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Years later I had to sue to get my royalties (after 3 weeks in court, I won.) During that time, I sold most of my video games to one of the world’s largest billiard table manufacturers, U.S. Billiards, located in Amityville, New York, starting with the aforementioned joystick-controlled tennis game. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">When the movie “Jaws” was released, I made a game called “Shark Attack.” Shortly thereafter, Dick Simon, the president of U.S. Billiards, asked me to create a game that would let you play four different variations of pool on a video screen. It took 9 months to do the hardware design and write the software myself. It was voted as one of the best in show video games at the MOA and Park Show, as reported in January 1977 RePlay magazine. In order to make the design possible, I used a Motorola 6800 microprocessor and 2.2K of EPROM to control the position of the pool balls on the video monitor. I used Carl Kelb’s Astral computer as a development system, a system that he initially showed to the Homebrew Computer Club. This project gave me the expertise I needed to release space combat game (unsurprisingly named “Space Battle”) to go along with the opening of the movie “Star Wars.”</span><br /><h3>Onward To Personal Computers</h3><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I first went to the Homebrew Computer Club meetings when Marty Spergel invited me, having told me that Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs had shown a computer there, which they wanted to start manufacturing under the name Apple Computer. Marty had been approached by Steve to sell the RF modulator kit for the Apple Computer, as a way for Apple to distance itself from FCC at the beginning, and as a way to avoid spending a year trying to get FCC approval while someone else took the market from them. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Marty said he would have to come up with $25,000 for the first order, and didn’t want to add to the risk by signing a one year lease on office and warehouse space. He asked me for my opinion about the whole venture, as he was facing substantial risk. I told him that in my opinion this looked more like an opportunity than a risk, and to help mitigate what he saw as a risk, I offered to let him use two offices and a warehouse rent free for six months. I told him that if things went well, he could pay me some back rent, but if things didn’t work out, that he owed me nothing. What I didn’t tell him was that I knew more about the start of Apple than he realized. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">When I was in my senior year at San Jose State, I was approached by National Semiconductor and offered a 30 percent raise from what I was making working at Siliconix. I accepted and worked for six months under National Semi’s Vice President, Mike Scott who was later to be Apple’s first president. Scotty was a smart, friendly guy who was very goal oriented. My direct supervisor told me that Scotty knew that I was going to school full time and would graduate with a BSEE in six months. He paid me a salary as a full time engineer, and told me that as long as I got my work done, that he didn’t care if I spent only 5 hours a week at National and the rest of the time doing homework. He cautioned me, though, that if the production line ever slowed down and the reason was me, that that would be the end. I never let them down, and was grateful for the latitude given. I left when I graduated, and started JRW Electronics, developing games as described above. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">While I was at National Semiconductor, I was finishing school, getting my instrument rating in airplanes, working on the side repairing broken video game boards that my brother-in-law was building for Atari, investing and running a downtown movie theater with George Crow (later to be a co-founder of Next with Steve Jobs) and finding the time to raft down the Mokelumne River. Scotty found out about that and we started a friendship with my teaching him how to safely run the rapids past the warning sign at Devil’s Toiletbowl. Once, I kicked Scotty in a very sensitive body part as hard as I could one day, but that will have to wait for a future story. That it was an accident and he forgave me for it will suffice for now. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Back to how I knew about the start of Apple with Mike Scott. I was at the West Coast Computer Fair, and Mike Scott saw me and we talked. He told me of his plans for Apple and that he would stay with them only till he got them to one billion in sales. I knew Mike could do it, because I saw his intense focus at National and the kind of person he was. By the way, he told me that it was his idea to have the bite taken out of the apple. It didn’t surprise me, after remembering back to National, when the movie “Deep Throat” came out, Mike took all the managers, including me, to see it, and no, the production line never slowed down. </span><br /><br /><h3>Designing the First Apple 2 80-Column Card</h3><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Marty was very successful with the RF modulator, and was very welcome at Apple as a “Friend of Apple.” He even had an Apple I.D. badge, number 3.5. Marty would spend time with both Steves and Mike Markkula. He told me that Apple had been unsuccessfully trying for two years to design an 80-column card and that if I could come up with a working design, he would be produce it if we got Apple’s blessing. I had it working in three weeks. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Marty got permission to contract Apple’s Andy Hertzfeld to write a firmware chip to connect it to the operating system. It worked. I even had designed a clever circuit to effectively double the bandwidth of the cheap monitors people were using to display the 40 columns. I was granted a patent for this circuit, which made the 80 columns look as sharp or sharper than the 40 columns had. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">For Apple’s blessing, Marty and I went to Apple and showed the card to Woz and Jobs. Jobs liked it and said it was the first he had seen with true “descenders” for lowercase and that the typography was aesthetically pleasing and easily legible. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Then we went to get Mike Markkula’s blessing. Mike saw it and was visibly pleased. He showed us a chart, a 2’ x 3’ sheet of paper, on an easel of the new Apple 3 business machine’s projected sales. Wow, exponential growth: this was Apple’s future. Then he showed the Apple 2 sales projections on the same chart. Wow, again exponential growth, but then a plateau and a curve downward followed by a line going to zero. He concluded that the Apple 2 would be dead in 6 months. He had no problem giving us his approval for selling the 80-column card. He said he calculated that my card would cut into the sales of the Apple 3 by 5%, but that would more than be offset by the projection that the decline to zero sales for the Apple 2 would not be as steep: he expected they would instead continue to sell past the 6 month projected death. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Markkula did better than give us his blessing. In fact, he said that Apple would put an 80-column card brochure in with every Apple 2 sold. I liked Mike Markkula. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I licensed Marty Spergel to produce the 80-column card and received a royalty. Marty and I helped provide compatibility information to John Draper and others so that they were able to make word processors compatible with the 80-column card. We even facilitated compatibility with VisiCalc. Neither of us expected the market for the card to last years instead of months after seeing Mike Markkula's marketing projection. Was the 80-column card responsible for the death of the Apple 3 and the resurgence of the Apple 2? Was the 80-column card the spark that showed Apple that it could be done, allowing them to eventually design their own version and all the subsequent models that saw so much success? It certainly didn't hurt the Apple 2 family product line. </span><br /><h3>Designing the First Solid State Drive for a Personal Computer </h3><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Having seen the strong market for Apple 2 add-ons, I was happy to oblige when Marty Spergel asked me to design another card: the first personal computer solid state drive (SSD). We called it a RAM Disk at the time. </span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Marty was regularly doing huge mailings to his distribution network and would get a reduced mailing charge if he would sort the addresses into sequence by zip-code. On the Apple 2, it took a full overnight run to sort and print out the labels. The slowest part of the process was waiting for the disk head to move to the right track and then rotate to get the data needed to sort. What if the entire contents of the disk drive could be put into solid state memory and the computer told that the RAM was a disk drive. The SSD I designed worked so well that Marty's mailing labels only took 35 minutes to sort and print, instead of over 8 hours. Memory was expensive then, so the SSD never took off in the large numbers we saw with the 80-column card. But in the last few years, Moore's Law has finally brought us to the point that many of us have SSDs in our personal computers.</span>JR Wilburhttps://plus.google.com/116220442865198769411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938884705816709469.post-16420254245713189482014-02-03T21:09:00.000-08:002014-02-28T07:00:43.879-08:00Burnside Lake<h4><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666;">Protect yourself and your loved ones by buying our products from</span><a href="http://igg.me/at/dots911" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;"> our Indiegogo campaign</span><span style="color: #666666;">.</span></a></span></h4><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: center;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: center;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: center;">"Meet the Magician Who Can Fix Your Crappy No Bars Cell Signal."...see the new article about DOTS911 at</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #666666;">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.fastcolabs.com/3026060/meet-the-magician-who-can-fix-your-crappy-no-bars-cell-signal" target="_blank"><b><span style="color: #0b5394;">FastCoLabs by Jennifer Elias</span></b></a><span style="color: #666666;">.</span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">During the Superbowl, Dateline NBC aired a great episode entitled "Against All Odds," the story of two people stranded at Burnside Lake, CA. &nbsp;One lived and one died, but if they could have made a cell phone call, it never would have been a tragic news story. The <a href="http://igg.me/at/dots911" style="background-color: white;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">DOTS911 Indiegogo project</span></a> is a solution to this kind of tragedy.</span><br /><a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">We went to Burnside Lake with the DOTS911 phone app and Signal Enhancer to measure signal strength data. &nbsp;Using our tools, we can make cell phone calls at many of the locations where people die or nearly die because they can't get help, showing how effectively our software and hardware can save lives. &nbsp;See <a class="ot-anchor aaTEdf" href="http://bit.ly/1gFhlcy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">http://bit.ly/1gFhlcy</span></a> for the example of Seven Troughs, Nevada where six were stranded for two nights in -20 degree weather. &nbsp;They couldn’t make a cell call, but we could and did.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Burnside Lake was an easy one, though. &nbsp;CDMA carriers like Sprint and Verizon get such a good signal that you can easily make cell calls and even watch YouTube videos. &nbsp;Obviously the victims weren't using these major CDMA service providers.</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NQLnypojiU0/UvCQAViTePI/AAAAAAAAAG8/XMswJaRoWNY/s1600/IMG_6841b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NQLnypojiU0/UvCQAViTePI/AAAAAAAAAG8/XMswJaRoWNY/s1600/IMG_6841b.jpg" height="640" width="384" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-size: large;">The above photo shows a great signal measured by the DOTS911 app while driving into Burnside Lake. &nbsp;As you can see in the below photo, other parts of the drive show no signal, so even on a CDMA provider the area is filled with dead zones where travelers should be protecting themselves by bringing a DOTS911 Signal Enhancer and loading the app on their phones.</span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-myfuZ8G72KY/UvCPmDsWF4I/AAAAAAAAAG0/ryGu52IZpps/s1600/AppspotHwy88Screenshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-myfuZ8G72KY/UvCPmDsWF4I/AAAAAAAAAG0/ryGu52IZpps/s1600/AppspotHwy88Screenshot.jpg" height="411" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="about:blank">file:///D:/Documents/BurnsideLake/AppspotHwy88Screenshot.jpg</a><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><h4><span style="font-size: large;">While the DOTS911 Signal Enhancer and app would likely have enabled the victims at Burnside Lake to easily find a signal and make a call, preventing a death, let us suggest another safety measure: don’t travel with anyone who has the same cellphone system as you. If you have CDMA (Sprint or Verizon), make sure your partner has GSM (T-Mobile or AT&amp;T). To not understand what I just said can be fatal, and in the Dateline episode, “Against All Odds”, it was. Don’t let this happen to you.﻿ &nbsp;Go to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dots911" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Our Indiegogo Campaign</span></a></span><span style="font-size: large;">&nbsp;and save your own lives and the lives of those you love.</span></h4>JR Wilburhttps://plus.google.com/116220442865198769411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938884705816709469.post-49544681720528343932014-01-28T16:43:00.003-08:002014-02-28T06:56:51.316-08:00First Time User Navigates Her Way out of the Forest with the DOTS911 App<h4 style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; margin: 0px; position: relative;"><span style="text-align: center;">Protect yourself and your loved ones by buying our products from<a href="http://igg.me/at/dots911" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue; text-decoration: none;">&nbsp;our Indiegogo campaign</span><span style="color: #666666; text-decoration: none;">.</span></a></span></h4><h4 style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; margin: 0px; position: relative;"></h4><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/bLdvQxGdowE?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0' /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">We've been asked several times how our phone app leads users back to their car, hotel, home, or some other safe location without requiring data service. &nbsp;We put together a video of a first time user to help you understand how it works.</span><br /><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><span style="font-size: large;">We took Joan Luthra a half mile into the forest in Big Basin, CA and asked her to use the DOTS911 Signal Finder App to lead us back to civilization. &nbsp;Joan had never seen the DOTS911 phone app before this hike. &nbsp;As mentioned in a <a href="http://dots911.blogspot.com/2014/01/lost-without-signal-far-more-common.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">previous post</span></a>, it only takes a mile jaunt into the wilderness before most people become hopelessly lost. &nbsp;Watch Joan's get our of the forest and out of trouble in her first experience using our app in this video.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">We didn't focus on this with Joan, but pay attention to the color of the dots she follows. &nbsp;The yellow dots not only tell her which way to go, but that she can make a phone call when she reaches them. &nbsp;If she used our signal enhancer she could probably make a call from some of the red dots as well.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">This demonstrates one of many uses for our hardware and software. &nbsp;You might more often use the app to get back to your parking spot at a busy mall or movie theater. &nbsp;The DOTS911 Signal Enhancer might be most commonly used to make sure you don't have any poor audio or dropped calls at home, or to accelerate your data connection. &nbsp;However, if you have an emergency our hardware and software can shift from making your day more convenient to saving your life.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Contribute at <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dots911"><span style="color: blue;">Our Indiegogo Campaign</span></a> to get both the app and the signal enhancer!</span>JR Wilburhttps://plus.google.com/116220442865198769411noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938884705816709469.post-9299754578875267852014-01-26T08:10:00.001-08:002014-02-28T07:16:15.749-08:00Lost without a Signal: Far More Common than You Realize<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><h4 style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; margin: 0px; position: relative; text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: center;">Protect yourself and your loved ones by buying our products from<a href="http://igg.me/at/dots911" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">&nbsp;our Indiegogo campaign</span><span style="color: #666666;">.</span></a></span></h4></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">It's surprisingly difficult to find good statistics on the number of people who get lost or stranded without a mobile phone signal. &nbsp;It's even more difficult to find the number of people who die in these accidents. &nbsp;Whether searching for global, American, or even local information, the fragmented nature of search and rescue and the fact that many of the victims are never even known to be lost makes quantifying this sort of event a daunting prospect. &nbsp;We're obviously interested in solving this problem - that's what our <a href="http://igg.me/at/dots911" target="_blank">Indiegogo campaign</a>&nbsp;is all about.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JCLIHMNiFFs/UuUz45N4WBI/AAAAAAAAAFU/S5nSOGctCUE/s1600/Gold+Beach+Junction.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JCLIHMNiFFs/UuUz45N4WBI/AAAAAAAAAFU/S5nSOGctCUE/s1600/Gold+Beach+Junction.png" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">So how big of a problem is this? &nbsp;Thanks to at article by <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2013/06/lost_in_oregon_hiker_who_vanis.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Richard Cockle in The Oregonian</span></a>, we now have more of an answer - in short, it's much worse than we realized. &nbsp;Oregon state emergency management official Georges Kleinbaum revealed that:</span></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Last year 1036 search and rescue missions were conducted in Oregon alone.</span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">89 percent of the people sought in these missions are recovered alive.</span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">8 percent of these victims die.</span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">2 percent are never found.</span></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">Since 1997, 240 men and women been listed as missing in Oregon's wilderness and never found.</span></li></ul><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">If we do a little arithmetic we see that<b> last year roughly 104 people died or were never found after being lost in Oregon, and this is just one state!</b>&nbsp; With a little more arithmetic based on the numbers since 1997, we can estimate from these numbers that roughly 1200 people during that span have lost their lives in the state's wilderness.</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">So how do we nationalize or globalize these numbers? &nbsp;Again, this is difficult. &nbsp;Oregon has a lot of wilderness, but it also has a relatively low population. &nbsp;It's unclear how this would compare to the number of events in other locations. &nbsp;Think of all the factors affecting this sort of event in Alaska. &nbsp;Now consider New York. &nbsp;As a rough estimate of national accident rates perhaps the best approach is to simply multiply by 50, giving us over 5000 annual deaths in the United States alone. &nbsp;And then even if we optimistically assume that the global rate per person is as low as it is in the United States, <b>we estimate about 100000 annual deaths occur globally when victims get lost in the wilderness.</b></span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">If the search and rescue success rate is the same as it is in Oregon, that means <b>a million people are lost or stranded in the wilderness each year.</b> &nbsp;Using the average cost of a mission given by Mr. Cockle, the immediate <b>cost to governments is a billion dollars a year</b> and that neglects the much larger personal and financial costs of failed missions.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a03PFExgTog/UuU0c0_VFXI/AAAAAAAAAFc/RdQ4uE-KQRs/s1600/Gold+Beach+Art+Signal+Map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a03PFExgTog/UuU0c0_VFXI/AAAAAAAAAFc/RdQ4uE-KQRs/s1600/Gold+Beach+Art+Signal+Map.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">So what does this mean for DOTS911? &nbsp;The Signal Enhancer and Signal Finder App were specifically designed to prevent this sort of accident. &nbsp;As Mr. Kleinbaum pointed out, it typically takes only a mile in the wilderness for victims to be lost. &nbsp;The DOTS911 App makes it almost impossible for users to get lost, even in areas with no mobile phone signal. &nbsp;The Signal Enhancer enables calls deep in the wilderness where normally there's no usable mobile phone service. &nbsp;Simply put, DOTS911 users won't be lost in the wilderness, and when they need help they'll not only know where they are, but they'll know where they can go to make a phone call for help.</span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">When you contribute to DOTS911&nbsp;on <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dots911"><span style="color: blue;">Our Indiegogo Campaign</span></a>&nbsp;you'll get a Signal Enhancer and phone app for yourself. &nbsp;You'll also be doing a lot to reduce the huge number of people &nbsp;- on the order of a hundred thousand -&nbsp;who die each year while stranded in the wilderness. &nbsp;And at the same time you'll give yourself better mobile phone reception and data transfer rates at home, all for a ridiculously low cost. &nbsp;<b>Please help us reach our goal, save thousands and thousands of lives, and make yourself safer.</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Link to Our&nbsp;<a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dots911" style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: blue;">Our Indiegogo Campaign</span></a></b></span></div></div>JR Wilburhttps://plus.google.com/116220442865198769411noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2938884705816709469.post-31378009453624602942014-01-01T12:30:00.001-08:002014-02-28T07:30:55.826-08:00DOTS911 Trip To Lovelock, Nevada to Investigate the Area where Six People with an Overturned Jeep Were Stranded for Two Sub-Zero Nights<div style="text-align: center;"><h4 style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; margin: 0px; position: relative; text-align: start;"><span style="text-align: center;"><br />Protect yourself and your loved ones by buying our products from<a href="http://igg.me/at/dots911" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">&nbsp;our Indiegogo campaign</span><span style="color: #666666;">.</span></a></span></h4><br /><h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">They couldn't make a cell phone call for help, </span>but we could!!!</span></h4></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a class="twitter-share-button" data-size="large" data-text="Make a call. Save a life. Save someone you love:" data-url="http://kck.st/1g8Be7y" data-via="DOTS911" href="https://twitter.com/share">Tweet</a><script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tcx3ictI2Zk/UsMSOtRPGXI/AAAAAAAAACI/AnOt1w6-rGU/s1600/IMAG1221.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tcx3ictI2Zk/UsMSOtRPGXI/AAAAAAAAACI/AnOt1w6-rGU/s640/IMAG1221.jpg" height="640" width="380" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Successfully making a cell call where the phone without our Signal Enhancer indicated no service</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;">We drove from San Jose, California to Lovelock, Nevada on Saturday, December 28, 2013 in a Ford Explorer and reached town about an hour and a half before sunset. &nbsp;We didn't want to waste daylight, so we drove around the outskirts of town taking cell phone signal strength data with the DOTS911 app, recording <span style="background-color: white; color: red;">red</span> (no service), <span style="background-color: black; color: yellow;">yellow</span><span style="background-color: white;"> (marginal service)</span>, and <span style="color: lime;"><span style="background-color: black;">green</span> </span><span style="background-color: white;">(usable service)</span> dots every 1/4 mile on a &nbsp;map. &nbsp;In Lovelock we saw good coverage, indicated by exclusively green dots.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><a name='more'></a><span style="font-size: large;">We planned to drive across 15 miles of high desert between two mountain ranges the next morning, so we filled up with gas (cheap, compared to California) at Two Stiffs Selling Gas, and had a very good dinner at Sturgeon's Inn and Casino, then slept in the Royal Inn across the street. &nbsp;The next morning we had a continental breakfast and I went out to walk around town, which was quite charming. &nbsp;True to its name, Lovelock has a series of chains behind the courthouse to which have been attached thousands of locks engraved with the names of visiting couples.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">I was hoping to find some knowledgeable locals who could give me directions to the spot where a Jeep carrying two adults and four children recently overturned and set into motion a widely publicized saga of desperate survival and a huge search and rescue effort. &nbsp;I got lucky in front of the Cowpoke Cafe, where I found a cluster of locals, one with a white hat. &nbsp;I introduced myself and explained what we've developed with the <a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dots911"><span style="color: blue;">DOTS911 phone app and Signal Enhancer</span></a>&nbsp;and our interest in testing it in the area to see how much our products would have helped the recently stranded party. &nbsp;As I might have guessed, the man in the hat was Richard Machado, the Pershing County Sheriff who had, with two of the other men in standing next to him, directed the search and rescue effort. &nbsp;These were exactly the people I wanted to find.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">After listening to my explanation, the group was skeptical. &nbsp;Sheriff Machado said there is absolutely NO cell signal in the Seven Troughs area anywhere near the site of the incident. &nbsp;I explained that I have been able to make cell calls in several locations where others had been stranded and found that usable signals exist in unexpected places, especially when using our signal enhancer. &nbsp;If the stranded party could have made a call, it might even have been to a tow service instead of 911, eliminating the involvement of emergency services and more specifically avoiding costly efforts from the 200-person search and rescue team, the emergency vehicles, the helicopters, and the civil air patrol flights. &nbsp;Sheriff Machado gave me directions to the site and agreed that if our products actually would allow a cell phone call from the area then they would have made a huge difference for the stranded group and for taxpayer-funded emergency services. &nbsp;He thanked me for the work DOTS911 is doing and I set out to follow his directions into the high desert.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EmK1Iax3mZg/UsRJA-ItGKI/AAAAAAAAACY/-QuvmYEamho/s1600/IMG_7132.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EmK1Iax3mZg/UsRJA-ItGKI/AAAAAAAAACY/-QuvmYEamho/s320/IMG_7132.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: large;">Pershing County Sheriff Richard Machado</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">We set out for highway 399, which we followed to the beginning of the 15 miles of dirt road across the desert to the Seven Troughs mountain range. &nbsp;Take a look at the picture of our data from the area.</span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QmeYMtavOM8/UsRSSV3ZekI/AAAAAAAAACo/lHOUcIvtc20/s1600/SevenTroughsDots911.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QmeYMtavOM8/UsRSSV3ZekI/AAAAAAAAACo/lHOUcIvtc20/s640/SevenTroughsDots911.jpg" height="405" width="640" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">Signal strength data from Lovelock (in the southeast) to the Seven Troughs area</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: large;">We saw green dots indicating usable cell service until the beginning of the dirt road 15 miles outside of town. &nbsp;At that point, as Sheriff Machado had described, our service disappeared. &nbsp;Notice, however, that the map shows a few yellow and green dots after the transition to the dirt road. &nbsp;When you're in an area with very little or no signal, it's not uncommon to see some signal dots that show a varying signal that comes and goes. &nbsp;If you stop moving and watch your phone, you might see no service, no bars, then 1 bar, 2 bars, no bars, and then no service again. &nbsp;If you try to make a call with this kind of marginal signal your phone will usually immediately switch back to showing no service.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">However, these marginal signals do represent some communication between the phone and a service tower. It often doesn't take much of an improvement to convert this fluctuating and unusable signal into something steady enough to make a call. &nbsp;Our Signal Enhancers are designed to do exactly this. &nbsp;Remember, though, that this isn't magic: amplifying a very weak or nonexistent signal is not a guarantee of success. &nbsp;Zero multiplied by anything is still zero.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">With that said, when we stopped to test our Signal Enhancer at one of these detectable but unusable signal locations, we immediately saw success. &nbsp;Without the Signal Enhancer we saw the behavior described above - a ghost signal that didn't let us make a call. &nbsp;<b>With the Signal Enhancer we easily made a call out of the area. </b>&nbsp;We've marked this location on the map. &nbsp;We were on a tight schedule to get back to the Bay Area that evening and the directions we had to the site of the overturned jeep weren't specific enough for us to know where to best demonstrate the DOTS911 products, but it's a huge success to have traveled into an area where Sheriff Machado has seen no phone service in his extensive history in the area and then make a call.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>If the stranded party had the DOTS911 app and Signal Enhancer, we would have never heard of this nearly disastrous ordeal. &nbsp;They would have been able to take a short walk and call for help. &nbsp;</b>There wouldn't have been headlines, there wouldn't have been a search and rescue effort, and two adults and four children wouldn't have had to spend two days in frigid weather, hoping for others to find them.<b>&nbsp; </b>We want to change this sort of fatal or nearly fatal incident into something much less dangerous, and we'd rather put your successful rescue stories on our website than see them in national news. See our&nbsp;<a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dots911"><span style="color: blue;">Indiegogo Campaign</span></a></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">A few days after our trip we spoke with Sheriff Machado over the phone. &nbsp;He's enthused about our success and the number of lives it could save. &nbsp;Now that he clarified the site of the jeep, we may take another trip to test our products closer to the initial accident and demonstrate a phone call from this previously zero service area to local search and rescue leaders.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;">Check out some additional photos from our trip:</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Szsm2kDndzY/UsRWz5BEUoI/AAAAAAAAAC4/_xmMhEEINSs/s1600/IMG_7124.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Szsm2kDndzY/UsRWz5BEUoI/AAAAAAAAAC4/_xmMhEEINSs/s320/IMG_7124.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OWAFuy7-rQ8/UsRXIcI3DyI/AAAAAAAAADA/a594wbzBivc/s1600/IMG_7129.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OWAFuy7-rQ8/UsRXIcI3DyI/AAAAAAAAADA/a594wbzBivc/s320/IMG_7129.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Round Courthouse</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AmhbwgDsQQA/UsRc9qstLQI/AAAAAAAAAE4/4USkZn0bAzo/s1600/IMG_7125.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AmhbwgDsQQA/UsRc9qstLQI/AAAAAAAAAE4/4USkZn0bAzo/s320/IMG_7125.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chains with Lovers' Locks</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4uqLzrTKT6Q/UsRXNmBKycI/AAAAAAAAADI/rqui41qfQuo/s1600/IMG_7128.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4uqLzrTKT6Q/UsRXNmBKycI/AAAAAAAAADI/rqui41qfQuo/s320/IMG_7128.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Locks</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mmot-O3Vp4c/UsRXhZiWeEI/AAAAAAAAADQ/8k2xc9GESvk/s1600/IMG_7136.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mmot-O3Vp4c/UsRXhZiWeEI/AAAAAAAAADQ/8k2xc9GESvk/s320/IMG_7136.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">399 North of Lovelock</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1RX5LHgsVf0/UsRXx79iXYI/AAAAAAAAADc/rq-QIk1_g1g/s1600/IMG_7139.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1RX5LHgsVf0/UsRXx79iXYI/AAAAAAAAADc/rq-QIk1_g1g/s320/IMG_7139.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Turn onto the Seven Troughs dirt road</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Itc16nDz7ZE/UsRX9gN31hI/AAAAAAAAADk/CrnFh6fjf00/s1600/IMG_7142.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Itc16nDz7ZE/UsRX9gN31hI/AAAAAAAAADk/CrnFh6fjf00/s320/IMG_7142.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fork in the road in the high desert</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uj4Aqo6-u6U/UsRYVcX8FmI/AAAAAAAAADs/lOCW-nnglcE/s1600/IMG_7147.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uj4Aqo6-u6U/UsRYVcX8FmI/AAAAAAAAADs/lOCW-nnglcE/s320/IMG_7147.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wild mules?</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jdmUlm8b2cY/UsRZPMUfryI/AAAAAAAAAD4/EqZgLUcwemQ/s1600/IMG_7148.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jdmUlm8b2cY/UsRZPMUfryI/AAAAAAAAAD4/EqZgLUcwemQ/s320/IMG_7148.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Approaching the Seven Troughs mountains</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uoiNFAhpOrw/UsRZ3025WzI/AAAAAAAAAEA/rqfwY63oGAU/s1600/IMG_7155.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uoiNFAhpOrw/UsRZ3025WzI/AAAAAAAAAEA/rqfwY63oGAU/s320/IMG_7155.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crossing Seven Troughs mountains</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BR48S0HeC4c/UsRZ-AziwvI/AAAAAAAAAEI/gOFW5tUztek/s1600/IMG_7156.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BR48S0HeC4c/UsRZ-AziwvI/AAAAAAAAAEI/gOFW5tUztek/s320/IMG_7156.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mountain ranges further to the west</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-93wpzg53eBU/UsRaKj0RTlI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/DteWm97Rk7c/s1600/IMG_7158.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-93wpzg53eBU/UsRaKj0RTlI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/DteWm97Rk7c/s320/IMG_7158.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Returning to green data dot</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G12YeW95SZE/UsRauR9-jvI/AAAAAAAAAEg/1kscnRCgIac/s1600/IMAG1222.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-G12YeW95SZE/UsRauR9-jvI/AAAAAAAAAEg/1kscnRCgIac/s320/IMAG1222.jpg" height="191" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">View from the green data dot location where we made our call</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-99b0VhE9qfg/UsRacCsTpmI/AAAAAAAAAEY/aMhb3kcAATk/s1600/IMG_7162.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-99b0VhE9qfg/UsRacCsTpmI/AAAAAAAAAEY/aMhb3kcAATk/s320/IMG_7162.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Drive to Seven Troughs ghost town (a yellow dot location)</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cyuMo7rLzJ4/UsRbG1twPhI/AAAAAAAAAEo/H5Y2MCT9tCM/s1600/IMG_7170.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cyuMo7rLzJ4/UsRbG1twPhI/AAAAAAAAAEo/H5Y2MCT9tCM/s320/IMG_7170.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Back to civilization on highway 399</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RFkFEIBnUsI/UsRbZ_9-MwI/AAAAAAAAAEw/KG_AypdHhRk/s1600/IMG_7178.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RFkFEIBnUsI/UsRbZ_9-MwI/AAAAAAAAAEw/KG_AypdHhRk/s320/IMG_7178.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Returning to California</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="text-align: center;">Look at our&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dots911" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue;">Indiegogo Campaign</span></a>JR Wilburhttps://plus.google.com/116220442865198769411noreply@blogger.com0